Half a dozen current and former Olive Garden employees as well as restaurant customers took the witness stand Tuesday afternoon during the trial of a man accused of attempted murder for allegedly shooting his estranged wife in the restaurant’s parking lot.

George Reynold Evans, 64, returned to superior court Tuesday on charges of two counts of domestic violence protective-order violation; attempted first-degree murder; assault with a deadly weapon, intent to kill and inflict serious injury; assault by pointing a gun; and felon in possession of a firearm. The charges are in connection to a 2014 shooting of his estranged wife, Audry Graham, in the parking lot of the Jacksonville Olive Garden Restaurant, where she worked.

According to previous Daily News reports, Evans allegedly approached Graham as she was escorted to her vehicle after work, shot at her and jumped in her vehicle and fled when she escaped to the refuge of the restaurant’s interior. The report says Evans allegedly led law enforcement officers on a 31-mile chase from Tabor City to Lake Waccamaw, where he’d allegedly stopped his vehicle abruptly and got out holding an automatic handgun.

In Monday’s opening statements, Assistant District Attorney Mike Maultsby said law enforcement officer tried to surround Evans and cut him off, when he allegedly pointed the gun at one of the officers. At that point, Maultsby said Evans was allegedly shot several times.

Evans, clad in a navy polo, sat with a slight slouch, peering over his glasses at the witnesses as they took the stand.

Tara Burton, former manager of the Olive Garden location where Graham worked at the time, recalled Graham mentioning to her she felt her estranged husband had been following her and had been to her house, as some things had been moved and she was frightened. Burton told the courtroom she’d told Graham to park at the front of the parking lot, near the entrance, as normally all employees would park at the back to give customers front parking spaces. When Graham, who worked preparing salads, was finished for the night around 11 p.m., Burton said she’d asked one of her line cooks, Antoine, to walk Graham out to her car.

“I locked the door at 11. I walked back to the kitchen,” she remembered, adding that while back there she heard a commotion and ran to the front of the restaurant. “By that time, one of my servers had been sitting there waiting for her boyfriend to get off near the front door. She had opened the door because Miss Audry had been screaming.”

She recalled Graham running back into the kitchen, where Burton said she’d followed her and when she got back there, Graham had fallen right into her arms. She’d been shot twice, Burton said.

It was at that point, Burton said, law enforcement arrived.

Audry Graham, who sat in the courtroom surrounded by family members on either side as de facto bodyguards, closed her eyes during the witness statements, breathing slowly as if to calm herself. She choked back a sob that normally wouldn’t have been heard, but was audible in a courtroom with less than three dozen people. She and two family members got up and exited the room only to return minutes later.

Robert Brown, an Olive Garden customer, recalled hearing a man’s voice, although he said he couldn’t hear any words, and hearing him beat on a window, yelling at the person inside. Then he recalled hearing what he thought was gunshots.

“Pop, pop, pop,” he said, describing the sound. He recalled a person running into the restaurant following the sound.

When Popkin asked Brown if he’d seen any gunfire, Brown replied he hadn’t.

Popkin asked each witness called up by the state if they recalled seeing a gun in Evans’ hand at the scene. Each replied in the negative.

The state also presented into evidence a granted domestic violence protective order requested by Audry Evans that would have been in effect at the time of the shooting.

Witness testimony is expected to continue Wednesday morning.

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